this is basically a response to a post from one of the authors I came to like reading,  here at OS.

lately, in her post Doc asserts that women should not consider it their brith right to conceive or be a mother. She goes on to say, in effect in the course of her post, that if a woman cannot make sure that she can give her child a 'live-in father', she should not consider having a baby out of selfish desire to be a mom.

I was about to comment there when I realized that I have too much to say on the issue - so I decided to do it in my space and not hog it at doc's and add to the storm there. I like her.

however, I like me too. and I feel whether it is government or the society, or even with a family, the most important responsibility of an individual lies with his own self. in the end it is s/he who has to take care of his/er own self. build a circle or people around that makes her feel worthy and lovable and loving or whatever. build a life that is not a liability to either the State or relations or even one's spouse or anyone for that matter. build a whole world around that helps develope and nurture his or her potential as a human being, an individual, as a parent or citizen.

if there is a lapse in any of these 'expectations' that society or State has of her/him, they are subjected to humiliation, or admonished depending on age, sex, status, economic importance. I mean you get to hear it - that something is just not right with you/ your life/ way you think etc.

now then, in the light of this 'fact of life' is it not natural for mature, financially able, responsible, intelligent, NORMAL women to want to go ahead and take care of themselves and their needs the way they can or want to? of course, we still do not have enough evidence as to what works best for child rearing - two parent formula, a set of hetero couple, a set of same sex couple or what. Three people had pointed these out in the comment section there.

we still do not understand what makes for a 'well brought up child' - in different cultures it means different things. it means these things depend on what values have been transmitted to a child - it doesn't matter who had done that as long as the values have been transmitted and are in functional condition. a lot of children grow up with widowed mothers - and still turn out to be great human beings by any standards wherever one might be in the world. Satyajit Ray grew up fatherless. he had lost his father when he was a child and grew up in his maternal parent's house.

there are other celebrities who did great things with their lives and are known to be fine men, women, citizens, artists yada yadadespite the fact that they grew up in a single parent environment.

what seems to be important here looks like, whether the child has had good 'parenting'. like another reader of that post points out, she grew up with a set of parents that were incompatible and often abusive. she actually says that she doesn't doubt that the children might have had happier childhood if they didn't have to live throught the agony and insecurity caused by such parenting. plenty of households have dysfunctional fathers or mothers but there is no statistics shwoing conclusively, that even 50% of these turn out bad.

statistics am sure - (to be rational and commonsensical),  would vary from culture to culture and country to country depending on other factors like "values", social practices.

it is nice and peaceful to have a "father" no doubt. ever since my father passed away I have felt alone and insecure like never before. he was like a great big umbrella and shock absorber in my life and am forty one!

yet, I would not say it is absolutely essential to wait until a woman has found a man that cares enough, is cultured enough, is decent enough, is man enough - to take the responsibility of his offspring willingly. a woman can bear children only upto a certain age. she keeps losing her eggs with every passing year whereas a man could, without much difficulty, father a child even at sixty. Picasso had one at that age, I hear. quite a few of them do. but how many women over forty five do you hear can bear a child easily?

if she hasnt found one she would like to bring home and share the parenthood of her child with - and mind you, being mom, she does know best about who is going to be good for her kid and who wouldn't. I think they were biologically designed to figure this out - instinct would tell her whom she ought to kick the hell out of her and the children's lives and whom to approach for shared parenthood. it really is uncanny with the way you can tell - sometimes one is not even looking and yet you know who you should not get too close to.

so when it is the woman that has to carry the baby in her womb for nine months, bear with the pain and agony, also responsible for inculcating social values in her child - she ought to get to decide. ESPECIALLY IN TODAY'S WORLD. we have lost those glorious days when moms taught their sons to be nice to women just because they were women!

and with cryogenics and cryonics progressing hand in hand (one is about controlling temperature and the other about keeping cells and dna alive in temperature controlled environment, right now can't figure which is which)(someday, I guess you could actually bring a dead man alive because his dna was alive in a cryo lab) and stem cell research and various kinds of producing babies outside of a womb - I do believe - we are heading on towrds days when women WILL not marry unless they really truly like a man, no bloody matter what the world says or does.

this argument is a bit culturally biased - but still - if you like, you can read up on Hindu mythologies, babies were created at will, as and when necessary and in various kinds of ways(Pandavas and Kauravas). there were days when a learned woman or perhaps any woman - could actually walk up to a man she admired or respected and ask for a baby!

O yes, India never was as backward as it is made out to be by nouveu Indians who forget their past and history. there were seven different kinds of marriages too, each of them perfectly legitimate,  in those days, before India became 'modern' (read Anglicized). (being gay wasn't a crime then - it was a matter of decently exercising a choice, without living an insincere or agonized double life).

what mattered was - who was bringing up the child and how, in what kind of environment.this should still be what matters.

the last word is it is my womb, my baby's life and mine - so I get to decide what's best for us. and if I can ensure my baby gets a set of wonderful people around to love it, cherish it, care for it and take responsibility if something were to happen to me, it IS my birth right to give my self motherhood.

marry I can even at age sixty five if I should find a man worth sharing my life with then. but would I be able to conceive then? so why should I wait or worry if I can now?

guess this has become a typical sagittarian "a bail mujhey maar"( "come clobber me folks on the head I dont give a shit" ) post.

but I just had to say this for the sake of a lot of people, gay, not so gay, lesbians, headstrong single women like me, women that never did find love but looked all their lives - men that could not muster enough courage or simply didn't have the ability to take responsibility as fathers (it is a huge task that a lot of them may not be up to and it is always better if they are honest about it and are spared!) - when you have this little pink baby that looks up at your eyes and breaks forth into this amazing fix-it-all sunshine smile - I would say, make the effort - father, no father, enjoy her and your motherhood -

let the world go figure - as long as you raise a child that knows how to care - about what people around you generally consider to be the right things in the world, take a chance, woman. be a mother, it is your birth right. THEY would have to earn their right to be the father, I think. am tired...